I have an open records request open with one department in Somervell County in which I have asked to come and inspect, in person, the records. Somervell County has it set up so that all requests for open records that come through the county are routed to an email that is monitored by the HR person, Haley, although she does not sign her emails (this is from a county commissioner meeting from August 29, 2024, in which she was given the responsibility of sending out a request to the appropriate person for fulfillment. )
However, she does not appear to be the officer of public information according to her emails about same. This is not my email but I asked my hub to forward to me (he mentioned the email) as I knew he had asked Haley to supply a certificate of training for the public information act. She answered that she did not have to take the training.
From the Open Records Training
Sec. 552.012. OPEN RECORDS TRAINING.
(c) A public official may designate a public information coordinator to satisfy the training requirements of this section for the public official if the public information coordinator is primarily responsible for administering the responsibilities of the public official or governmental body under this chapter. Designation of a public information coordinator under this subsection does not relieve a public official from the duty to comply with any other requirement of this chapter that applies to the public official. The designated public information coordinator shall complete the training course regarding the responsibilities of the governmental body with which the coordinator serves and of its officers and employees under this chapter not later than the 90th day after the date the coordinator assumes the person’s duties as coordinator.
Now, I know that each department within Somervell County does its own open records requests. However, seems like the person sending in a request to an email in which the person not even forwarding the request or sending back the records after presumably being forwarded to them by the individual department *ought* to have training in the Texas Public Information Act or maybe clearly specify with the email or on the website that has this email, that this person is merely a facilitator with no training that forwards the requests to other departments.
This leads me to two questions. First, from the Texas Public Information Handbook p 23
The officer for public information must “promptly” produce public information in response to an
open records request.83 “Promptly” means that a governmental body may take a reasonable
amount of time to produce the information, but may not delay.84 It is a common misconception
that a governmental body may wait ten business days before releasing the information. In fact, as
discussed above, the requirement is to produce information “promptly.” What constitutes a
reasonable amount of time depends on the facts in each case. The volume of information requested
is highly relevant to what constitutes a reasonable period of time.85
If the request is to inspect the information, the Public Information Act requires only that the officer
in charge of public information make it available for review within the “offices of the
governmental body[.]”86 Temporarily transporting records outside the office for official use does
not trigger a duty to make the records available to the public wherever they may be.87
First question. The above would mean, since Haley is not the public information officer that whoever gets the request would be the one to promptly produce the public information and also equally important for her to immediately forward to the relevant department, yes,as public information officer or not, by being the one to answer an open records request email she takes responsibility for getting that request to the right entity promptly? Also seems like the “offices of the governmental body” would be specific to the particular government department being asked.
Subsection 552.221(c) states:
If the requested information is unavailable at the time of the request to examine because
it is in active use or in storage, the officer for public information shall certify this fact in
writing to the requestor and set a date and hour within a reasonable time when the
information will be available for inspection or duplication
Second question, and this I’m wondering about in particular with the request I have with a department that is behind a secure door in the annex. Typically, for years, when I have had an inspection in person request, i’ve been able to do it in the office of the person I asked. Alternatively, I think there might be a conference room in that area, but still behind the secure door where I could look at the papers. Since Haley is not a public information officer, that entity could not bring the papers to her and ask her to be responsible for the inspection. Yes?
